In the After
by freeze1
Summary: It isn't until the black smudge of Cobb's suit dissolves into the crowd that it occurs to Ariadne she has no where to go. The first few hours after the plane lands.  Arthur/Ariadne


It isn't until the black smudge of Cobb's suit fully dissolves into the crowd that it occurs to Ariadne she has no where to go. She is standing alone in the arrivals gate of LAX leaning against an empty suitcase because in all of the meticulous planning for the job, she never stopped to think about what would happen after the job was done. Intoxicated by a powerful combination of fear and intrigue, she had somehow shut her eyes to practicality and the troublesome notion that the reality is not simply a conduit to another dream. That there might come a day when they would finally reach the finish line and leave the dreams to rest. Now waking life has caught up with her and she has stepped off the plane directionless, with all the words that once defined her no longer seeming to apply. Somehow, when she was not paying attention, she has become a woman she does not recognize.

Even without reaching for her totem Adriane knows she is not dreaming because this moment of realization, quiet and unceremonious - _this is real, this is your life now and things are going to be different _- feels exactly like a kick.

She is frantically considering making a beeline to the ticket counter to barter her way onto the first flight back to Paris when Arthur materializes at her side, his palm warmagainst the small of her back.

"Come on, let's get a drink," he says, and for what seems like the first time since landing she feels herself exhale.

He takes her to a hotel bar with crisp, silk linens and plush crimson chairs that she is embarrassingly under-dressed for. She orders wine she can't afford (except, of course, she _can_) and waits while he stows their suitcases behind the registration desk. She wonders if he's staying here, if he's stayed here before. She wonders if he remembered to pack a toothbrush.

"Where are you from?" Arthur asks once he returns to the table, and the question is so absurdly reminiscent of an awkward first date that she snorts, loudly and inelegantly.

His eyebrow quirks with restrained amusement. "Not Los Angeles, I assume."

"No," she replies, "not Los Angeles. My parents live in Michigan. What about you?"

"New York, originally."

"And now?"

"Here and there." He doesn't elaborate, just takes a sip of his drink and she wills herself not to be disappointed by his discretion. She understands the need to maintain some mystery, some secrecy in waking hours when you make your living on inviting others to traipse into your mind. She understands that there are boundaries, that they are colleagues, that a compendium of things she knows about him would be shorter and less varied than the average grocery list. Yet nonetheless, the parasitic invasion of her work upon her regular, _real _life has blurred the line between coworker and friend (and something else, somehow, something shadowy and undefined). And after all here he sits, the only person she knows in this whole city.

"Will you go back to Michigan?" He asks, but it's not quite a question. She pauses, thinks about crystal white streets and her mother's cherry pie, the creaky path from the kitchen out onto the screened-in porch. She has crossed continents (worlds, galaxies, whole universes, really), but that former home seems beyond reach, now, a memory from a past life.

"No," she replies.

"Will you go back to Paris?"

"No." She isn't aware of the truth of it until she hears it aloud. She has raised whole cities from the earth; she cannot pretend to be a student any longer.

Arthur flicks his gaze up from the rim of his glass to meet hers and when he grins, she feels something curl deep in her stomach.

"Good."

* * *

She spends the night in a hotel room that connects to Arthur's by a single white door. He must have arranged it ahead of time, knowing it would come to this.

"I plan things," he says by way of explanation, ever stoic as he offers her the key. "It's what I do." But what he really means is, _I know you better than you think I do _and she has no choice but to agree.

In the room and lacking pajamas, she strips down to her underwear and folds herself into the creamy taupe sheets to the muted sound of movement in the adjacent room (_of Arthur brushing his teeth, washing his face, taking off his tie, his shirt, his pants)_. She is asleep minutes after her head hits the pillow. She does not dream.

* * *

The next morning she stands blistering in the shower and tries to plot herself on the tangled map of what has become her life. When she can't, she settles on mentally constructing a museum wherein which each piece of artwork functions as a portal to a further dreamscape. She is so caught up in the idea, the fantastic rush of possibilities, that upon exiting the bathroom it takes her a moment to realize that Arthur staring at her from where he leans against the foot of her bed, hands deep in the pockets of his suit.

"That was quite a noise you just made," he notes, helpfully.

She clutches her towel a bit tighter around her chest, flushing. "You scared me! I wasn't expecting you to be in here."

He shrugs. "I knocked. And I am paying for this room, if you recall."

"Oh come on, you know full well I can pay you back for the room, Arthur," she stammers, "now will you please get out of here? I need to get dressed."

"I can see that," he murmurs, and though his eyes never leave her face she notices how the muscles along his jaw tighten. "Well then, meet me in the lobby when you're ready."

He saunters back through to his room, shutting the door behind him with a firm click. Ariadne counts ten thunderous pulses of her heart before letting the towel slip to the carpet.

* * *

When she arrives in the lobby in the same clothes as the day before - Arthur raises an eyebrow, but wisely keeps his mouth shut - there is already a taxi waiting to take them to the airport.

"Where are we going?" She asks and then immediately wishes she hadn't because it's awfully presumptuous to assume that his plans will automatically include her. But he simply loads her suitcase into the taxi without missing a beat.

"Mumbai." At her look: "It's temporary. I have some payments to settle." She smiles and doesn't press further. She probably doesn't want to know, anyway.

* * *

The in-flight meal is steak, just one of the many benefits of first class. He cuts the meat up into neat geometrical cubes but she devours hers, suddenly and painfully aware of how hungry she has been. She can sense him watching her, little wrinkles of amusement in the corners of his eyes, but hunger outweighs any sense of self-consciousness.

He explains the job, the normal job absent of the mess that is inception (as if a life built around dreamworlds could ever really be normal). He details the typical clientele and price per assignment, the hours logged and the designs required. _A day in the life of an extractor_, she muses, nodding along absently because although she hasn't formalized it, of course she has already agreed to this. Extraction is her life now, that which pumps blood through her veins and the rest is all minute details. But Arthur seems determined to let her know what she is in for and his concern, though unnecessary, is sort of sweet.

When he finishes she asks, "Will we need a new extractor?" and as something unclenches in his face she knows he hears it, the implied _Yes, I will work with you. _He settles back in his chair with something like relief and when he smiles, really smiles, it stretches across the whole of his face.

"We'll see. For now, let's take it as it comes."

She nods. _One day at a time_, she thinks, and smiles back.

* * *

Arthur hits the ground running, leaving her with little more than a hotel address and a curt promise to return before he weaves his way into the crowd. She's neither surprised nor disappointed that he didn't take her with him; there is so much about him that she is not part of, not yet at least. Someday she'll ask all the questions she's been jotting down on the back of her boarding pass - when did you start working with Cobb? What did you study in school? Are you more partial to cake or pie? - but for the moment she is content to let it rest. They have time.

She spends the next few hours winding a lazy path through the smog-filled streets, marveling at the looming discrepancy between the skyscrapers and metal shacks that line the sidewalk. She exchanges her all too stuffy shirt for a cheap tunic and thinks about her apartment in Paris, the dresser drawers filled with clothes and the electricity bill she has yet to pay. She needs to call the University and change her temporary leave of absence to a withdrawal and oh, jesus, call her mother and come up with some excuse as to why she would willingly drop out of a program she spent years preparing for. Preferably an excuse that doesn't involve the words _sleep crime_. She needs to figure out what responsible people do with money, because she's pretty sure her old solution of hoarding euros in ratty winter stockings will no longer suffice.

There's something else, too, something less tangible that she can't quite put her finger on and it bothers her until she eventually makes her way back to the hotel to find Arthur standing in her room, pouring himself a drink. His suit jacket is slung across the back of the chair and he has rolled the sleeves of his white dress shirt up to his elbows; the hollows of his cheeks betray his fatigue. He frowns at his watch, then at her as she closes the door behind her.

"Long day?" He asks.

"You're in my room again."

"Yes." There are two glasses on the table, she notices, two glasses and a bottle of wine and Arthur, back rigid and eyes dark.

And she thinks, _oh. Right._

This time she is the one to kiss him, resting her palms on his shoulders as she rises to her tiptoes to brush her lips against his. She lingers until she hears a noise, rough, at the back of his throat and then his hands are on her waist, pulling her flush against his chest.

"You don't have to," he says against her lips. "This isn't why I brought you along."

"Isn't it?" She teases, but she feels him stiffen and amends, "Of course I don't have to. I want to."

His left hand has crept under the fabric of her tunic and is inching its way up the soft curve of her side. "This is separate," he intones, as though laying the grounds for a business transaction, but with a glint in eye that has her heart drumming in her ears. "We can keep this separate."

"Separate," she breathes, and then he leans forward, pushes her back against the table with his mouth hot and wet against her throat and she is lost again.

* * *

Later, _after_, they lie tangled together on the floor with Arthur's index finger sketching a series of geometric shapes across her abdomen.

"Maybe I'll buy a place now that I have the cash," he says. "Something respectable."

"Respectable?" She laughs. "As opposed to your current place, you mean?"

"Perhaps." He chuckles, deep in his throat, and as she smiles she is already picturing the deep wood molding, the sharp lines and muted elegance of Arthur's ideal apartment, already laying out the blueprints in some corner of her mind.

"Where would you buy this place?"

"Not sure. Maybe some place new."

"Mmm," she considers. "Amsterdam?"

"Not my scene."

"Istanbul?"

"Already lived there."

"Rome?"

He pauses, considering. "Rome has potential. But I bet dealing with real estate would be a huge pain in the ass."

"Well you don't have to buy," she reminds him. "You could always build."

For a long moment he says nothing and she is about to change the subject when she feels his breath against her shoulder. "A good point. You wouldn't happen to know a good architect, would you?"

Ariadne closes her eyes, bites her lip to maintain some modicum of composure, and then rolls until she is straddling his waist and he is looking up at her, attempting to restrain a smile.

"I do, actually," she says. "And I think we can work something out."


End file.
